When a car is written off in Lebanon, it usually disappears into a phone call. The insurance company rings two, three, maybe five garages it already knows, takes the best of those offers, and the car is gone. Nobody else gets to bid. The insurer leaves money on the table, and the buyer who would have paid more never hears about the car. I started AA Group in 2026 to replace that phone call with an auction.
What a total-loss car is worth when more people can see it
The idea is not new. In the United States and the UAE, companies like Copart and IAA have run insurance vehicle auctions for years. Insurers hand over their damaged and salvage cars, buyers from across the market compete for them, and the highest bid wins. Lebanon never had this. Every insurer handled its wrecks on its own, in a small circle, with no competition on price.
That is the gap AA Group fills. We are an auction house for damaged, salvaged, rare, collector, and ordinary cars, and we run the sales on our own platform at aagroup.bid. Insurance companies are the supply. Garages, body shops, people who flip cars, and anyone looking to buy a car for less and repair it are the demand. Our job is to put the two in the same room and let the price find itself.
Signing insurers one meeting at a time
To get started, I went to every insurance company myself. I sat in their offices, presented the system, explained how the auction would work, and signed the deals one by one. Then I rented three plots of land to hold the cars. That was the whole launch: a system, a set of agreements, and space to park.
I did not do it from nowhere. My family is in the car business, and my father, Roy Antypas, is in insurance. Both of my parents taught me everything I know about this trade. My father showed me how insurers think, and my mother, Saada Antypas, was with me at every step of building the company. I am 19 and still a student at AUB, so I had to learn fast, but I had the two people who knew both sides of this business right beside me.
From the accident to the winning bid in two weeks
The process is simple, and that is the point. Once an accident happens, the insurance company sends the damaged car to one of our lots. We inspect it, store it, and secure it. We set a minimum reserve price and open the auction.
Buyers come to the lot and look at the car with their own eyes. If they want it, they place a deposit and then place a bid. The auction runs for about two weeks. When it closes, the highest bidder takes the car. No guesswork, no photos from another country, no surprises at delivery.
Why insurers get more and buyers pay less
For insurance companies, the change is in the size of the audience. Instead of selling to a handful of garages, they are selling to a large pool of buyers who bid against each other. That means a higher price, a faster sale, and a process that is organized and traceable from the day the car arrives.
For buyers, the change is in what they no longer have to do. Many people in Lebanon who want a cheaper car or a project car have been importing damaged vehicles from abroad, paying taxes on them, and buying without ever seeing the car in person. Now they can buy locally, inspect the car first, and skip the import bill.
And the lot is not only for insurers. Anyone who wants a fair market price for a car, whether it is damaged, expensive, or rare, can bring it to us and let buyers compete for it.
Organizing a market that was never organized
Lebanon's used and salvage car market has always run on personal contacts and closed deals. That works for the few people inside the circle and badly for everyone else. What we are building is the infrastructure that market never had: a place where cars are inspected and secured, prices are set in the open, and the best offer wins.
We are based in Mkalles, Hazmieh, and we are only at the start. Every insurer we sign and every buyer who registers makes the next auction more competitive than the last. That is how a market gets organized: one car, one bid, one sale at a time.
See the cars currently up for auction at aagroup.bid.
AAGroup
